The Math Has Changed

Most major carriers have 'adjusted' their pricing recently, mostly in response to T-Mobile's new, "un-carrier" program.  This presents two important considerations for the cellular consumer: 1)Do Your Math, and 2) Do Your Shopping.

Do Your Math!  Grab a calculator and add up how much a "2-year" plan will cost you vs. what that plan will cost you if you buy the phone separate from the plan.  In many cases we found that the 2-year contract cost was less than buying the phone outright, especially if you actually pay extra for the right to buy a new phone early.  As with any computation, there are additional numbers involved.  If you want to change before, or not change phones at the end of that 2-year obligation, your costs change, too.  Many of us can't live with the same technology that long.

Do Your Shopping! Today you can choose the model of phone you want, buy it the way you want, and choose the plan you want.  Unfortunately, there is a large variation in how each of those inteact, and we certainly don't want to suffer from the "Tyranny of Choice".  Today you can get a decent amount of Data along with Unlimited Calls and Texts for $45.  That number is beginning to by challenged at the $40 level with included Data ranging from 500Mb to 1Gb.  And yes, you can go cheaper than that. Net10 now offers a $40 plan and even AT&T has promised to will offer $40 plans after they take control of Cricket Wireless.

This is also a heads up for those of you who are nosing through the information in the Mountain Wireless Networks.  We often mention a price range for certain products that, unknown to us, has changed, usually to the downside, making it even more important to do your shopping.  We've got the tools to do just that among our sites.

Yanking Out the Wires

A few months ago we reported that Verizon Communications was planning on replacing a large of number of wired telephone customers in Long Island with wireless boxes.  The plan was to replace telephone service to those areas destroyed by Hurricane Sandy in a far less expensive manner, especially since the residents in that area were not very big telephone users and may not replace their landlines anyway, it seemed like a good idea.  At the time the FCC saw otherwise.  They thought not rebuilding the wired network may have dangerous ramifications.

Since then there has been a change in thinking. AT&T proposed adding only coaxial cable (or fiber) to new installations in Florida as an experimental trial.  This time to FCC says it's worth a try.  After all, why install a few pair of wires and a high-capacity pipe for all communications, especially when the same company, AT&T in this case, control both.  So much for the 'twisted pair'.  This is harder to clarify in areas like where I live where a different company controls each.

We have watched the trends and the CDC reports as of 2013, fully one third of US homes now have wireless as their only means of telephone communications.  Many of these homes have cable installed in their homes, so it is likely they use cable as their broadband access, but not everybody.  With the additional broadband growth of the wireless carriers today, we see that number should shrink as well. We are following the trend at our 'cut the cord' web site which was recently changed from The Unwired Home to Mountain Unwired to reflect the growing used of wireless in all of our devices wherever we are, no longer just at home.

Noisy Disclaimer

The Federal Trade Commission requires bloggers to reveal any compensation offered for positive reviews about any products.  We don't get any money for our reports, doggone it.  We do, however, have financial investments in most of not all of the wireless carriers we review.  Through mutual funds and  Exchange Traded Funds we own small parts of several wireless carriers.  After looking through the fund holdings, I own a large chunk of AT&T, a smaller piece of Verizon Communications, much smaller pieces of really small carries like US Cellular and NTelos, and surprisingly, no Sprint or T-Mobile stock.

I find that we have been more critical of the carriers in which we have some stock, therefore I would say we don't show much conflict of interest.  This year we should be less critical of AT&T and T-Mobile and more critical of Verizon and Sprint, and lots of hand-wringing over US Cellular.  Now I hope the Feds are happy.

MetroPCS Goes to Mexico

A few days ago we featured MetroPCS, now owned by T-Mobile, as a newcomer in many areas of the US, and wondered if, or how, they would start promoting the service.  I have begun to hear a few plain vanilla radio ads and seen some bus sides for them, and a few TV mentions.  But the thing that caught our eye was their new Mexico roaming abilities.  

Until recently, AT&T's GoPhone was the only US Prepaid phone that roamed economically in Mexico.  Now MetroPCS takes advantage of the fact that new customers are being issued GSM phones that will easily roam in Mexico.  The catch is that Mexico roaming requires a $10 add-on that gives you a couple hundred minutes of talk time or texts from Mexico, and unlimited incoming texts while in Mexico.  Most of us would need Mexico roaming only a few times a year, if that.  But the plan also includes an even bigger number of calls to Mexico including unlimited calls to Mexico landlines. You need to subscribe to their $50 (or higher) monthly plan to qualify for this add-on...not the catchy $40 plan they advertise.  There's no mention of Data.   Those who cross the border on a semi-regular basis or those with family in Mexico would stand to gain, the rest of us, less so.

While T-Mobile phones only roam on the smaller Movistar network in Mexico, it should be adequate for most gringos. The most notable part of this offering is that T-Mobile has taken MetroPCS in a direction that is different that T-Mobile itself.  Along with T-Mobile's greatly increased International roaming capabilities, this new Mexico roaming capability gives us a taste of what may be possible from the carrier that's wearing the same clothes but now has a much better looking body.  We even gave them another "Star" in our Mountain Prepaid Ratings improving them toward the middle of favored no-contract carriers.

What's that MetroPCS Store?

Welcome MetroPCS to your neighborhood, who, up until now, has only been in a few large markets.  Now they are opening new stores in cities across the country with little promotion.  MetroPCS is now owned by T-Mobile who has absorbed all of Metro’s wireless spectrum as well expanded the name across the country.

I’m not sure what value the name is outside of their old markets since most of us have never heard of them.  They might as well have named it Pete’s Wireless…it would have had the same recognition value.  You may soon see (or have already seen) the new signs and wonder what do they sell there?  In my brief interviews the top answer is, “Computers”,  as in PC’S.  T-Metro has a lot of work to do in publicizing their brand in these new markets and it needs to be a lot more than sponsoring the latest monster truck jam.

MetroPCS gives users an alternative to the mainstream carriers’ deals by offering a good amount of “Unlimited” data in some simple plans AND a store to back up what they sell, even if it’s just a SIM.  So, even though MetroPCS doesn’t really offer the BEST Smart phone deals, they DO offer a way for us to improve our wireless costs (and maybe our phones) and a place to hang out until the rest of the world figures out what these stores are selling.

The New Year Shuffle

One of the things we do at Mountain Wireless is Rate each cellular carrier based on how they perform compared to the others.  As some carriers slip to a lower position, others move up, even if they haven't made any improvements.  Lately, there has been a shakeup among the Top 5 carriers which has resulted in a shakeup in their Ratings at our site.  The actual Rating number isn't that important, but the changes might cause you to reconsider which of the top tier carriers you want to use:

• AT&T has been raised 2 whole places in their ratings over the past 3 months after they have chosen to compete, mostly against the recent moves of T-Mobile, which has resulted in several consumer-friendly features and plans.  They changed the no-contract pricing so you really aren't charged for your phone after you pay it off.  Also, they have some new, lower-priced plans that  appeal to a more modest user.
• Sprint has been dropped one rating point even though they have made significant improvements in their network coverage.  What has given them a lesser rank is their lack of really competitive plans and, for some reason, a whole bunch of consumer complaints.  We can't point to any one factor.  We're guessing they are either having a difficult time finding properly trained help, or  just not enough of them.
• T-Mobile moved up 2 notches over the past 6 months for several reasons.  They made some significant technical changes, part of which was re-aligning their coverage bands to support the iPhone.  A year ago they were slacking off, now, under an aggressive CEO, they have become the wireless "disrupter". Not only do they offer a wide variety of competitive prices, they have made the huge move of allowing their customers to roam internationally, either Free or at a reasonable rate.  Remember when free nationwide roaming across the US was a big deal?
• Verizon has lost one position in the Ratings mainly because they have chosen to the be "premium" carrier, and with their superior coverage across the US, especially at 4G, they have earned that higher value.  But the price-sensitive customer has much better places to go.
• US Cellular keeps moving forward even though we reduced them from the lofty Top position in the Ratings earlier last year.  We were ready to drop them again but finally offering the iPhone brought them back into keeping their lofty position by giving something that keeps customers from escaping.

We expect these competitive positions to change over the next year as pricing becomes more important than coverage. What great times we live in!

Revol Wireless Pulls the Plug

Another small wireless carrier, Revol Wireless has thrown in the towel. Based in Cleveland. their own network served several cities around the Great Lakes (but not Chicago).  Sprint has come in to grab a few customers (or all of them?) by converting several of the Revol stores into Boost Wireless outlets.  Boost has extended an offer of a free phone and a free month of service to Revol users, but they need to move fast.  The deadline for switching to Boost is Christmas Eve.  Long lines are forming at the Boost stores...just what we need in the busy holiday season.

Even if you can't wait in line or if you miss the deadline, you have until January 16th to switch to any carrier and keep your current number.  After that, it's all gone.  We're betting every carrier in town will welcome Revol users but they won't have the prices Revol users were enjoying.  Don't expect to be able to use your old phone, so get ready to start with a new phone and a new carrier.  Call it it a forced Christmas present to yourself.

"Revol" was supposed to introduce a "Revolution" in the wireless industry, but other carriers revolved as well. The loss of another carrier is a sad thing but what's even sadder is that when a company like Revol goes away it usually means users will be absorbed into one of the major carriers.  At least you can keep away from the contracts with the low-priced carriers listed at Mountain Unlimited.

How Much Data Do You Need?

It wasn't long ago that most wireless carriers offered Unlimited Data plans.  Then they found out just how much we would use if given free access to the Data buffet.  Since then there have been caps put on Data usage which should give us reason to at least think about how much Data we need.  It was during the Unlimited Data revolution we created the Mountain Unlimited web site to capitalize on what was then the novelty of Unlimited data plans.

Now with almost every carrier offering some kind of "Unlimited" Data, we decided instead to help you find the cheapest Data plans.  We arranged them by price.  Yes, you can get Unlimited Data for $25 (or less!) as long as you're willing to make some tradeoffs.  We searched for the best plan at each price point.  For example, at $40 per month MetroPCS offers 500 Mb of Data before getting "throttled" down to 2G speeds.  But we link to SIMple Mobile who offers 2.5GB before getting the throttle.  None of these plans don't require a contract.

The average wireless smart phone user gobbles up just less than 2GB of data per month and, of course, we expect that to increase, especially with the wider availability of 4G service. The bigger the plate and the bigger the buffet table, the more we can consume.  We'll help you find the best buffet price.